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What We Do

Build a Scholarship Fund


Your legacy.
Their opportunity.

Why choose the GIPS Foundation to build your legacy?


Personalized  Working with the GIPS Foundation allows you the opportunity to choose the type of student to invest in, with interests and aspirations that match your legacy.

Easy  The GIPS Foundation makes starting a scholarship a simple process. Whether you are investing a few hundred dollars or a few million, the professional staff do the work, allowing you to enjoy the reward of creating opportunities for students.

Enriched donor experience  The GIPS Foundation offers an experience for donors like no other. You are given the chance to meet your scholarship winners, learn about their plans and be part of their journey.

Safe and secure  The GIPS Foundation's four-decade tradition of excellence offers peace of mind. You are investing in a trusted, reliable organization.

Recognized  The GIPS Foundation is a nationally recognized charitable organization, setting the standard for others to follow. Our four-star foundation received the highest rating a charity can receive.

Building a Legacy Scholarship Fund

I often get questions about how to set up a scholarship fund that will benefit students.

Here at the GIPS Foundation, we have made this process uncomplicated for the donor. As we sit down to build the fund, I will ask several questions. Is the fund a reflection of a family or business value system? Or, is the fund to recognize the legacy of a loved one? What is the essence of this loved one? What was important to him/her? We try to capture the essence of this person or goals of the donor with the scholarship fund guidelines.

The next questions revolve around the applicant. What kind of student do you want to help? We use the statistics captured in our online scholarship system to show donors what kinds of students are successful at acquiring scholarships and perhaps, what types of students are underrepresented. Then we move into the mechanics of the fund. Is it the donor’s desire that the fund produce scholarships every year, forever? How much do you want to give in each scholarship award? When it is the donor’s desire to make the fund an endowed fund that will generate a scholarship every year, we share the following investment strategy:

Endowed Funds:  The GIPS Foundation generally allocates 4% of the endowed fund value to the annual scholarship award. So, if it is the donor’s desire to create a scholarship that pays $1,000 each year, forever, the endowed fund value will need to be $25,000. A $500 scholarship would require a value of $12,500 for the fund.  

Not all at once:  Donors may start a fund and let it grow over time. The Foundation will invest the fund, beginning at any level, and let it grow to the desired endowment level.Donors can add to their funds over time as well. Remember, all gifts to the GIPS Foundation are tax-deductible.

Pass-through Scholarship:  The other option that the GIPS Foundation offers is called a pass-through scholarship. This is a fund that the donor gives each year for their scholarship award. The Foundation processes this award and passes it on to the college or university on behalf of the winning student. There is a nominal fee of $50 per scholarship for this service.

Whether you choose to create an endowed scholarship or a pass-through scholarship, the GIPS Foundation manages all of the details. We offer a comprehensive online application for students. For the review process, we gather approximately 90 volunteers who are assigned to one of 22 groups to review. These volunteers score scholarship applications independently online in a blind process (the fields identifying the student applicants are blocked from the reviewers). The scores are then calculated for each scholarship to reveal a list of ranked potential winners/alternates. This review culminates in an Equity Committee meeting where volunteers assign scholarships using these ranked lists while ensuring that one student doesn’t win an overwhelming majority of the scholarships. At the end of the Equity Committee meeting, the students’ identities are revealed.

At this point, the GIPS Foundation makes scholarship offers to the students and manages the acceptance process. Donors and students are invited to a scholarship reception to meet and get to know one another.

And finally, all scholarship winners must present proof of enrollment in a college, university, or trade school to the GIPS Foundation to have their scholarship released to their school.

At the GIPS Foundation we take pride in the quality of service we provide to donors who want to share their values with future generations through a scholarship fund. We make the process uncomplicated so that YOU can enjoy the satisfaction of investing in students.

Want to build a scholarship fund? Have additional questions?

For more information or to get started with your own legacy scholarship fund complete the form below, or call/email Traci Skalberg at 308-385-5900 ext. 1170; tskalberg@gips.org

First Name
Last Name

Services we provide to our scholarship donors:


Verified Pool of Qualified Applicants  Students fill out one online application. The application does the work processing student applications into the proper review groups for each scholarship.

Marketing of Each Scholarship  All scholarship guidelines are uploaded on our website and are available through the online application. Guidelines that are open to multiple schools are sent to the appropriate school counselors. From time to time the GIPS Foundation may publish scholarships and winners in the newspaper.

Credible Review Process  If you are a business or organization, the GIPS Foundation will work with you to set up a review group or use a review group appointed by the GIPS Foundation Board. All applications are reviewed online with the applicants’ names and other identifying information blocked from the review. Reviewers sign a conflict of interest statement. The review can be accessed using the internet.

Scholarship Equity Process  The GIPS Foundation offers a Scholarship Equity Committee to ensure that 20 scholarships do not get awarded to just one applicant.

Notification of Scholarship Award and Offer Process  The GIPS Foundation will notify the winner of your scholarship award and verify that this winner still meets all of your criteria. If the winner no longer meets the criteria (such as choosing to attend an out of state school, when the criteria stated student must attend a Nebraska college), the GIPS Foundation will offer your scholarship to an alternate determined in the application scoring process.

Scholarship Winner and Donor Reception  The GIPS Foundation hosts a Scholarship Winner and Donor Reception annually to introduce students to the donors of their scholarships. This is a unique opportunity to make a personal connection to your scholarship winner. *When it is safe to do so in-person.

Payment and Follow-up with Winners  The GIPS Foundation verifies enrollment of all scholarship winners in accredited post-secondary institutions and makes scholarship payments to these institutions on behalf of the scholarship winner.

Scholarship Compliance Issues  The IRS has several rules guiding scholarship awards and distribution. The GIPS Foundation follows these rules to ensure a safe and credible experience for our donors. Additionally, the GIPS Foundation will handle all NCAA Scholarship Compliance calls and requests for students who play college athletics.

Tax-deductible Gifts  Your scholarship donation is tax deductible. You will receive a receipt for your gift and be listed in our annual report (you may also choose to remain anonymous).

© 2021 Grand Island Public Schools Foundation
Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

  1. What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.
  2. Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
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  7. Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
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  9. How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  10. How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
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  12. What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
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Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.

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